'Look to the Cookie': An Ode in Black and White

By WILLIAM GRIMES

Published: May 13, 1998

THE characters on ''Seinfeld'' did not eat well, but they ate very New York. The ''Seinfeld'' diet was an Upper West Side smorgasbord of cheap eats: Chinese takeout, soup in a paper cup, rye bread, gyros, pizza, muffins and calzones. The piece de resistance, however, the New Yorkiest bit of food in television's New Yorkiest series, was the oversize black-and-white cookie, a New York standby that is sold in bakeries and delis all over the city.

''I think of it as New York's answer to the Oreo, because there was a ritual to it,'' said Rochelle Udell, the editor in chief of Self magazine, whose family owned Ratchik's bakery in Brooklyn. ''The black-and-white always asked the question, Which side do you start with first? It was graphically appealing, and it allowed you enormous freedom to personalize how you ate it.''

And how. Cara De Silva, a food writer, logged some serious quality time with the black-and-white cookie when she was growing up in Washington Heights. ''The lure of the cookie was that it was both vanilla and chocolate -- you could have both together,'' she said. ''I enjoyed fiddling with it.''

Fiddling could take complex forms. If the cookie was topped with a soft frosting, you could lick it off. A brittler frosting could be lifted from the soft cookie base in small chunks, held in the mouth and savored. You could also separate the cookie into two halves, one black and one white, creating two cookies, or leave the cookie whole and take alternating bites from each side until the whole thing disappeared.

Tomorrow night, when ''Seinfeld'' fans gather in apartments all over New York to celebrate their favorite series and mourn its passing, the cookie will no doubt have an honored place on the table, right alongside boxes of breakfast cereal and loaves of the marbled rye bread that George's parents buy at Schnitzer's. It's a ''Seinfeld'' must.

The cookie made its brief but memorable appearance in Episode 74, ''The Dinner Party,'' in which Jerry and Elaine try to buy a chocolate babka. While standing in line at a bakery, Jerry nibbles at a classic black-and-white, and as he nibbles, he reflects. The cookie communicates powerful messages. Among other things, its stark black-and-white design makes an eloquent plea for racial harmony. ''Look to the cookie,'' Jerry says, holding it aloft.

The black-and-white has been around forever. Herb Glaser, the baker at Glaser Bake Shop on First Avenue near 87th Street, said that as far as he knew, Glaser's has been making them ever since it opened 96 years ago. ''When I was growing up, I'd have two of them for dessert every day,'' Mr. Glaser said. ''I was a fat kid.''

Technically, the black-and-white is not a cookie but a drop cake. The batter resembles the batter for a cupcake, with a little extra flour so that the dough does not run all over the place when it is dropped, dollop by dollop, on the baking sheet. ''The trick is to add enough flour so the batter holds a shape, but not so much that the cookie becomes dry, which is a common problem with the black-and-white,'' Mr. Glaser said. Once baked, it is iced with chocolate and vanilla fondant frosting.

Today's black-and-white cannot compare with the black-and-whites of yesteryear, of course, just as no mayor will ever be as good as La Guardia and no team as beloved as the Dodgers. It is now the stuff of legend, even though a truly impartial adult judge might say that, as cookies go, the black-and-white is nothing special. That argument does not get very far in New York. ''I still have a thing for that kind of vanilla icing, which is awful, really,'' Ms. De Silva said. ''It's kind of a secret vice.''

Local ''Seinfeld'' fans who want to look to the cookie may have a hard time getting supplies, if legions of fellow party-givers hit the bakeries hard tomorrow morning. There is no reason to settle for a stale shrink-wrapped cookie from the produce market, however. The classic black-and-white may be complicated to eat, but it is easy to make. Viewers who recall that the ''Seinfeld'' cookie sat uneasily on Jerry's stomach need not fear: this one has been tested.

2. In large mixing bowl, combine sugar and butter. Mix by machine or hand until fluffy. Add eggs, milk and vanilla and lemon extracts, and mix until smooth.

3. In medium bowl, combine cake flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt. Stir until mixed. Add dry mixture to the wet in batches, stirring well after each addition. Using a soup spoon, place heaping spoonfuls of the dough 2 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake until edges begin to brown, 18 to 20 minutes. Cool completely.

4. Place confectioners' sugar in large mixing bowl. Gradually stir in enough boiling water to the sugar to make a thick, spreadable mixture.

5. Put half the frosting in the top half of a double-boiler. Add the chocolate and corn syrup, and set over simmering water. Warm the mixture, stirring, until chocolate is melted and frosting is smooth. Turn off the heat, but leave chocolate frosting over hot water to keep it spreadable. With a brush, coat half of the top of each cookie with chocolate frosting, and the other half with white frosting. Let dry, and store in an airtight container.

Yield: 2 dozen large cookies.

Photos: IF NEW YORK WERE A COOKIE ... Black-and-white cookies, like these at Glaser Bake Shop, were edible emblems of the city long before ''Seinfeld.'' (Ruby Washington/The New York Times)(pg. F1); (Ruby Washington/The New York Times)(pg. F8)